Peter's Moment in Sun

The most cable-centric — and poignant — highlight from last Thursday's MTV: Music Television Video Music Awards
occurred off-camera. During a commercial break, MTV personality Carson Daly hushed the Radio City Music Hall audience to acknowledge the presence of Peter Barton, the former Tele-Communications Inc. and Liberty Media Corp. senior executive, who's dealing with an undisclosed life-threatening illness.

Daly paid tribute to Barton's role in getting the channel a major TCI carriage deal that proved critical to MTV's existence. With that deal, Daly told the crowd, MTV jumped from 2 million homes to nearly 20 million.

Barton, chosen for inclusion in sister Reed Business Information magazine Broadcasting & Cable's Hall of Fame this fall (Nov. 11), attended the MTV show with his family. Encore Media CEO John Sie joined Barton for the MTV trip.

Live TV's Perils

When Avril Lavigne won the "best new artist in a video" award on MTV: Music Television's Video Music Awards
special last Thursday, she thanked MTV – and Muchmusic USA.

MTV censors were busy bleeping cuss words from several live performances, but its top brass probably wished they'd also purged the reference to the rival music network.

Bare-Naked Shopping

The Wire couldn't help but be intrigued by a release that reads, "It's sex with a smile. Erotica with a dash of science fiction. You've never seen anything like The Naked Shopping Network …"

Alain Siritzky, the French producer behind the soft core Emmanuelle
series, has created a strip of shows for which he's purchased time on local-origination channels in 15 cable markets. The shows will come in two versions: naked and clothed. They feature erotic film star Kira Reed, Kylie Wyote and Playboy
model Laurie Wallace. Given the content, the shows will be telecast in the "safe harbor" hours after midnight, Siritzky told The Wire.

The naked chicks will sell videos and DVDs, some in 3-D (we're not making this stuff up), with titles like Emmanuelle in Space. Future episodes may expand into lingerie and other, er, erotic items.

According to Siritzky and his partner, Gerry Cunningham, both of Click Productions Inc., the shows will launch on Sept. 9 in Phoenix, Ariz.; New York; Las Vegas; San Antonio; Seattle-Tacoma, Wash.; Atlanta; and Houston, among others.

The last city on the list raised our eyebrows — Los Angeles. Adelphia Communications Corp.'s L.A. system has the most active local-origination operation but, by dictate of founder John Rigas, no adult content was available anywhere on the dial on any Adelphia system. Cunningham confirmed that the formerly adult content-free Adelphia system has sold time to The Naked Shopping Network.

Fuhgedaboutit 101

Think college is all about high-brow education? Fuhgedaboutit.

Seems University of Calgary educators think premium cable is a fine source for dissecting the finer points of drama.

So along with other offerings examining drama through the ages, English professor Maurice Yacowar will present a course aligning Home Box Office's The Sopranos, our favorite New Jersey crime-family drama, with the gangster-film genre. The course is part of the university's film studies program.

And Yacowar didn't become an expert merely by spending time in front of the tube. He also authored the book 'The Sopranos' on the Couch: Analyzing Television's Greatest Series.

Students in the class, which has been filled to capacity for some time, won't have an easy ride. To pass, they'll have to write three short essays and present one major research project — or face an old-fashioned knee-busting from Tony, no doubt.

Bo Knows

How's this for programming-and-sponsorship compatibility?

A&E Network has scheduled Uncut: The True Story of Hair
for fourth quarter. And A&E has signed Procter & Gamble Co.'s Clairol hair coloring as a major sponsor.

The two-hour documentary, due Oct. 21 at 9 p.m., will be hosted by actress Bo Derek – she with the famous braids in the film 10 .
What, Farrah Fawcett wasn't available?

Twin Towers Memories

As the Sept. 11 anniversary fast approaches, World Trade Center scenes in past movies become more poignant than usual.

The Wire noticed late last month, for instance, several Twin Towers shots in Cinemax's premiere of Bait, a Jamie Foxx adventure flick from 2000.

On the other hand, Home Box Office has clipped three seconds from The Sopranos'
opening credits for season four, starting Sept. 15 — to delete a view of those buildings in the distance as Tony drives along the New Jersey Turnpike. But the WTC remains in the credits in HBO Video's third-season DVD set, which hit stores last week.